Today's Stichomancy for Dwight Eisenhower

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac:

lack of intelligence, she did not dare to speak or to look at him. She went slowly on; the man slackened his pace and fell behind so that he could still keep her in sight. He might have been her very shadow.

Nine o'clock struck as the silent man and woman passed again by the Church of Saint Laurent. It is in the nature of things that calm must succeed to violent agitation, even in the weakest soul; for if feeling is infinite, our capacity to feel is limited. So, as the stranger lady met with no harm from her supposed persecutor, she tried to look upon him as an unknown friend anxious to protect her. She thought of all the circumstances in which the stranger had appeared, and put them together, as if to find some ground for this comforting theory, and

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther:

and seals, letters, and instances [that this happened] are at hand.

[When there were such, I say] These did not need repentance. For of what would they repent, since they had not indulged wicked thoughts? What would they confess [concerning words not uttered], since they had avoided words? For what should they render satisfaction, since they were so guiltless of any deed that they could even sell their superfluous righteousness to other poor sinners? Such saints were also the Pharisees and scribes in the time of Christ.

Here comes the fiery angel, St. John [Rev. 10], the true

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske:

has lost his former soul and had it replaced by that of a young child or a reindeer. In a recent work in which the crudest fancies of primeval savagery are thinly disguised in a jargon learned from the superficial reading of modern books of science, M. Figuier maintains that human souls are for the most part the surviving souls of deceased animals; in general, the souls of precocious musical children like Mozart come from nightingales, while the souls of great architects have passed into them from beavers, etc., etc.[174]

[173] Agassiz, Essay on Classification, pp. 97-99.

[174] Figuier, The To-morrow of Death, p. 247.

Myths and Myth-Makers

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac:

it would be very easy then to build a farmhouse in a good position on the slope of the hill. We should be happy there. I will send for Guepin. My poor comrade will work like a horse; perhaps I could marry him here. My son is not a do-nothing either. No one would put us out of countenance; we could colonize this corner of the estate, and I should make it my ambition to turn it into a fine farm for you. Moreover, I want to propose as farmer of your great farm near the chateau a cousin of Catherine, who has money and would therefore be more capable than I could be of managing such a large affair as that farm. If it please God to bless your enterprise, in five years from now you will have five or six thousand horned beasts or horses on that